Does descriptive representation lead to social desirability bias? Over-reporting of voting among blacks and Latinos in the United States

Abstract

This study explores whether black and/or Latino respondents are more likely to over-report voting in districts with US House candidates of the same race/ethnicity and whether the overstating of political participation is contingent on shared partisanship between the candidate and the respondent. We test these relationships using vote-validated data from the 2006 and 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. We find that blacks and Latinos are not more likely to over-report voting in districts with descriptive candidates regardless of whether the candidate and respondent share the same party identification or not. The results of this study provide support for previous and future studies linking descriptive representation to higher levels of black and Latino turnout using non-voter validated data.